


Regret

by Valmouth



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Friendship, M/M, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-04
Updated: 2012-11-04
Packaged: 2017-11-17 23:59:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/554650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valmouth/pseuds/Valmouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rafa wonders if Roger ever regrets smiling at him, all those years ago when he first won against the World Number One.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Regret

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own no rights to these two real characters, or to the real places, events, people etc that may be referenced herein. I mean no offence by posting this and make no money from it. This is entirely fictional.

Roger could have done it. Sometimes, at dead of night, Rafa wonders why he didn’t.

Roger could have humiliated him. Could have said things.

Roger could have made him feel about two feet tall and he could have made things really, really sad.

This isn’t to say that Rafa wouldn’t have won the same matches anyway but it would have been different. He knows that. And he knows, somewhere at the back of his mind, he knows that Roger knows.

He wonders if Roger thinks about it. Whether Roger regrets it.

He wonders if Roger regrets smiling like he did when Rafa first won, all those years ago. He tries to remember if Roger has ever made him feel like less of a player.

The first time they met, Rafa was only seventeen. He was so young and so naive. He could play the game but he didn’t know the mental strength that went with it. Toni had tried to prepare him but he knows now, looking back, but that it wouldn’t have been enough. It wouldn’t, maybe, have been any help if Roger had been less nice. If Roger had decided that he couldn’t be bothered to be nice to some Mallorcan teenager who couldn’t speak English, who had stars in his eyes from playing and winning against the World Number One. If Roger had sneered, Rafa knows that he would have folded in the long run.

Roger could have made things really bad in the locker room.

There are stories. Rafa has heard them. He has heard what can sometimes happen when players think one of their own doesn’t have the proper respect.

But this is tennis. Tennis values respect; it values sportsmanship. It values niceness.

Roger is always the perfect champion.

 Roger never once made Rafa feel like less of a person. For winning, for losing, for trying.

Roger always made time. Roger always smiled. Roger was always nice.

Rafa wonders if Roger ever regrets it. Looking at Roger, remembering all the times he’s won, remembering that, for Roger, Rafa has already won the match by default, Rafa wonders if Roger would change how he once acted.

Because maybe Roger would want to be a cold person, maybe Roger would want to be mean. Maybe Roger would want to sneer more, laugh at him, point at him, make him remember why Roger had been World Number One when Rafa was only struggling to make his way up the rankings.

Maybe Roger wouldn’t want to be friends.

Some days, Rafa thinks he couldn’t bear that if he ever finds out if it’s true.

So he doesn’t ask. And so Roger doesn’t say that he does regret it.


End file.
